Delanceyplace.com 08/28/06-The Numbers on Poverty

In today's excerpt, the contrast between our expectation that the global human condition will improve and current trends:

"...industrialized countries, which accounted for 40 percent of the world's population after World War II, now account for only 20 percent, though they earn 85 percent of the world's income. In coming decades, the industrialized world is expected to make up only 12 to 15 percent of planetary population, as 90 to 95 percent of all births take place in the poorest countries...

"Never before--not at the time of various democratic revolutions in Central Europe in 1848 or at the conclusion of World War I--has wealth disparity been so great as after the Cold War. And never before, because of the global communications revolution, has this disparity been so visible...

"And as the tax base of the West (climbs more slowly than)...populations climb in the third world, foreign aid will make even less of a difference in coming decades. Besides, in an age of localized mini- holocausts, decisive action in one sphere will not necessarily help the victims in another. People will either solve or alleviate their problems at the local level, as in Rishi Valley, or they won't."

Robert D. Kaplan, The Ends of the Earth, Vintage, 1996, pp. 434-7